Thursday, June 1, 2017

Zix

Zix (Lebanon)

Tides of the Final War

release date: October 28th, 2016

label: Pure Steel Records

As you can see by looking at the release date, I totally missed the boat on this band, but maybe it’s not too late for the diehards who live and breathe for traditional heavy metal with the tunes for banging your head. Zix goes for direct, no-nonsense riffs and heroic guitar solos, with a drumming style that is the heartbeat of a song. The heritage of Zix is Judas Priest, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the grit of traditional/classic American metal (“U.S. metal,” as some call it in Europe) and today’s true metal, which is often associated with the label Pure Steel Records (Germany).

With songs like “Metal Strike,” “A Thousand Wars at Sea,” “Dark Days of Babylon” and other such subject matter, they focus on history, oppression, violence, the struggle for freedom, and of course, heavy metal music. Zix is all about having a strong sound of guitar work that you can hear and guitar skills that you can feel, in the hooks and melodies. Heavy metal lifers will immediately recognize what they have here. Zix does not try to fool anyone; Zix is not posing, posturing and pretending to be some “new” innovation. The objective is heavy metal music, not fashions and trends.

The band apparently formed in 2010 and they have already done an EP in 2012, but this right here is the full-length album. In order to give you more of a context here is some official information that you might take an interest in: “ZiX is a heavy metal band which was formed in Beirut in 2010 by composer/bassist Ziad Bardawil who had already been working on his own projects since 1998. Ziad joined forces with Maya Khairallah in 2012 after meeting the guitarist Juan Carrizo in Germany and they decided to record a debut ep. In December 2015 two new members joined the band, Walid Awar on the guitars and Ziad Al Alam on the drums.”

“Formed in 2010 in Beirut, Zix’s goal is to illuminate the oppression of metal heads and lift the ban on heavy metal in this part of the world. For years, metal music lovers, aka metal heads, have been oppressed by various religious and political institutions here, resulting in cancelled concerts and unjust arrests. With this project, Zix hopes to break down these barriers for good." About being on the label Pure Steel Records, they said: “The band is very excited to be part of the Pure Steel Records roster specially that some of the major influences of Zix are part of the Pure Steel family such as Omen, Exxxplorer, David Shankle, to name a few and we are looking forward to working with them.”